Ex-Masonic Temple's history started in 1917

Long-time Vallejo Mason Charles Bailhache said the former Masonic Temple at Marin and Virginia streets was a good place to meet. The group might still be there if downtown's character and culture had not taken a turn for the worse, he added.

"They stayed very busy but downtown Vallejo was getting on the rowdy side and we had ladies dressed up in their refinery and they would be getting insulted by these young fellows who were uncouth," Bailhache said.

"It was getting pretty bad and lodge members said we needed a new space," Bailhache said.

In 1978, the Masons sold the four-story building after opening their new lodge in east Vallejo near Locust Drive.

The former temple is set to be converted into 29 affordable artist live/work spaces, performance hall, art cafécafe, commercial art gallery space, music school and performing arts studio.

Its past incarnation saw lodge members, mostly bachelors, living in the top two floors, who found it increasingly hard to negotiate the staircase as they got older, Bailhache said.

Erected in 1917, the brick building replaced an even older wooden temple on that site, according to a 1970 Times-Herald article.

With its brick walls and tall arched windows outside and wooden cavernous halls inside, the former Masonic Lodge retains some of its former grandeur.

Since its 1978 sale, the building has housed more activities and functions than anyone can recall nearly three decades later, Bailhache and others said.

Shortly after the sale, a new owner came in and held disruptive "rave" parties, Bailhache said. "They were a real nuisance and made a lot of noise. They started holding some real wild events down there," he recalled.

Domus Development, who bought the building with a city loan this year, said the lodge saw "many successive owners and tenants" in the decades following the sale and prior to its going into foreclosure in 2009.

From 2002-2008, the Performing Arts Center occupied the space and also rented it out to artists and for a variety of functions, such as community fundraisers and political campaign kick-off parties, said Solano County Arts Council President Carmen Slack, who assisted prior owner Fred Brandenfels in managing the building.

One Hispanic group used a portion for church services, while other Latinos rented out the hall for coming-of-age Quinceañera parties, Slack said. She herself teamed up with another woman and opened an exercise studio.

The prior owner, Slack said, sank thousands of dollars into fixing up the lodge, but then ran into a wall when the city demanded permits and various upgrades.

"The owner tried to save it," Slack said.

It's sad the building has sat vacant for several years, she said.

"It's kind of crazy since they've let it go," Slack said. "I don't think anybody should destroy a (historical) landmark. But if they let it deteriorate and it's crumbling down, there's nothing they can do."